No end to violence

A country that has been a theatre of war for nearly two decades, Afghanistan has endured far too much bloodshed to be explained. Violent deaths are frequent occurrences but taking the gory misfortune to another level of savagery was when an ISIS suicide bomber walked into a wedding party in Kabul and killed over sixty guests including children and injured over hundred others at the venue. It has been established that the strategy of ISIS is explicit savagery, its expansion and rule in Syria and Iraq made clear that the terror group operates by propagating fear and a few select powerbrokers. Given that there have been significant changes in the political situation in Afghanistan in the past months, peace talks for the war-ravaged Afghanistan have been taking place conspicuously. This wedding massacre in Kabul, however, has something to say about the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Washington is now said to be close to a deal with Taliban. The reactionary Islamist movement was ousted from power by a US-led invasion in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001. The agreement would see the remaining 14,000 US forces in Afghanistan withdraw in return for a Taliban commitment to a ceasefire and a pledge not to support acts of international terrorism. This underlines the fact that peace in Afghanistan is going to come on the guarantee of Taliban. This seems like a favourable arrangement as a peace deal between Taliban and USA will enable both to take on ISIS which is now raging with insurgency in Afghanistan. But, in spite of this arrangement, it is questionable if Taliban will not pursue its archrival, the Afghan government, before making a move towards ISIS. The unfortunate and highly condemnable act of terror at a wedding spot in Kabul reflects the extent to which the Afghan state has collapsed. The United States had earlier made a key concession with Taliban agreeing to direct talks that excluded the Afghan government from the table. This is what the insurgents always wanted, recognition of supremacy over its rivals. But with this wedding attack, ISIS has clearly challenged the supremacy of Taliban and has meandered its way in to create more chaos in Afghanistan.